University of Nebraska–Lincoln campaigns class wins Chevy competition against UNO for 3rd consecutive year

University of Nebraska–Lincoln campaigns class wins Chevy competition against UNO for 3rd consecutive year

Sunday, December 13, 2015 - 6:00pm

Chevy Trax Tailgate campaign water bottles

University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications advertising and public relations capstone campaigns class won its competition against the University of Nebraska at Omaha for a Chevrolet advertising campaign.

This year’s campaign focused on the Chevy Trax, a small new SUV to the U.S. market. The last two years have focused on the Chevy Cruze.

The organizer of the competition, Tim Young, president of Southport Marketing, represents 13 Chevy dealers, who form the Heartland Chevy Dealers. Young said University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s “planning and research were phenomenal.”

The campaigns class is a 20-student advertising and public relations capstone course in which students are divided into two teams and compete against each other to create the best integrated marketing campaign for a real client.

Campaigns instructor Michael Goff said the internal competition between the two teams in the class was extremely close. The winning team was chosen by a score of 11-9. We saw very good work from both teams, and the presentation in Omaha was well done.

Young said the presentation was “one of the best I’ve seen in the past six years.”

For the past three years, the Heartland Chevy Dealers have been a client for Goff’s fall campaigns classes. Once a winner is selected at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the winning team goes to Omaha to compete against the UNO team from its marketing management class.

The winning University of Nebraska–Lincoln campaign was “Create Your Own Trax” and focused on graduates or their parents looking to purchase a car as part of graduation. The campaign included a Trax Tailgate in the Union Plaza, where more than 800 people participated in the public relations event the team held in late October.

“Campaigns class is a great experience because it’s a good way to test the different roles that make up a team,” account executive Ellesandra Meyer said.